C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Alfred Billings Street (1811–1881)
The Settler
H
Amid the sea-like solitude,
And rushing, thundering, down were flung
The Titans of the wood;
Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed
With its supporting bough,
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed
On the wolf’s haunt below….
Mid the black logs green glowed the grain,
And herbs and plants the woods knew not
Throve in the sun and rain.
The smoke-wreath curling o’er the dell,
The low, the bleat, the tinkling bell,—
All made a landscape strange,
Which was the living chronicle
Of deeds that wrought the change.
The rose of summer spread its glow,
The maize hung out its autumn fringe,
Rude winter brought his snow;
And still the lone one labored there,
His shout and whistle broke the air,
As cheerily he plied
His garden-spade, or drove his share
Along the hillock’s side.
Roar crackling on its path,
And scorching earth, and melting wood,
Beneath its greedy wrath;
He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot,
Trampling the pine-tree with its foot,
And darkening thick the day
With streaming bough and severed root,
Hurled whizzing on its way.
The grim bear hushed his savage growl;
In blood and foam the panther gnashed
His fangs with dying howl;
The fleet deer ceased its flying bound,
And with its moaning cry
The beaver sank beneath the wound
Its pond-built Venice by.
When Liberty sent forth her cry,
Who thronged in conflict’s deadliest place,
To fight—to bleed—to die!
Who cumbered Bunker’s height of red,
By hope through weary years were led,
And witnessed Yorktown’s sun
Blaze on a nation’s banner spread,
A nation’s freedom won.